‘Trial And Error’ Succeeded In Creating a Wholly Unique World, Unlike Any You’ll See On Television

During a recent episode of the NBC sitcom Trial & Error, a personal trainer named Alfonso (Kevin Daniels) was asked on the stand about a weekend he spent with local eccentric Larry Henderson (John Lithgow). Henderson’s wife, Margaret, was killed when someone threw her through a window in her home, and Henderson is on trial for the murder.

After saying they shared a workout, a smoothie, and a sauna, Alfonso launches into a graphic description of a sex act, mimicking the actions of cradling balls and pushing someone’s head into his crotch. (I found a subsequent arm motion impossible to decipher given the context.) But we cannot hear his testimony because it is bleeped, for 11 seconds – an eternity by network sitcom standards – leaving us only to hear his final words, “…to completion.”

It was a funny bit, but the show wasn’t close to done with it. Defense investigator Anne Flatch (Sherri Shepherd) confirmed the testimony by repeating it, complete with the same arm motions and a bleep of similar length, then did so again. After the prosecutor and the court reporter did the same, the central joke had been repeated five times, and the entire bit took almost 1:20 of the show’s 21:30 run time (a half hour minus commercials).

Eating up that kind of time with a profane, virtually wordless bit – including almost a full minute with no sound other than an annoying beep – was a bold gamble for a primetime network show, but it still wasn’t as long as my laughter in the scene’s aftermath.

Trial & Error concludes its all-too-brief first season tonight as one of the most clever, unique, and audacious series on network television. If you haven’t watched it, consider this a plea. If you enjoy humor that embraces the brazenly ridiculous, that grabs every opportunity for a joke no matter how outrageous, and that is not afraid to wear its silliness on its sleeve, then Trial & Error is for you. Don’t just watch a random episode: start from the beginning and allow the madness to burrow under your skin, as it did mine. The entire season is currently available on NBC.com and Hulu. For comedy fans, the rewards are plentiful.

The show chronicles the events surrounding the trial, which takes place in the small, quirky, and fictional town of East Peck, South Carolina. Larry Henderson, whose connection to reality can be described as “in passing,” denies committing the crime, but never seems too broken up about his wife’s death, saving his concern for important endeavors like his poetry or rollerblading, or making sure he’s planting the right kinds of flowers on his wife’s grave. Anytime he overcomes a hurdle in his trial, he mistakenly believes that he’s free.

Josh Segal, a young attorney from New York played by Nicholas D’Agosto, was sent to East Peck without any resources to represent Henderson. As such, he must use locals with no legal knowledge as his defense team, and to help him face off against prosecutor Carol Anne Keane, played by Glee veteran Jayma Mays.

His two-person “legal team” is a revelation. Dwayne Reed, played by Broadway veteran Steven Boyer, is one of Josh’s investigators despite being as dense as they come, but his stupidity is of a place. Rather than a Sandleresque “just hit him in the balls” brand of dumb humor, Dwayne’s ignorance is uniquely his own. He shocks himself with a stun gun to build a tolerance, and wears a t-shirt with Larry’s picture and the word “Guilty” on it, not realizing it goes against his own side. When he finds an arm – yes, just an arm – in a town pond, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He’s had family members hit by trains and mauled by bears. Now, finally, here’s his own moment in the sun.

And while Shepherd was always funny as Tracy Morgan’s wife Angie on 30 Rock, she reaches a new level here. Anne is the calm in every storm, despite a whirlwind of sensory disabilities. She has a disorder that causes her to laugh in stressful or sad situations (like when describing how the light left her grandmother’s eyes in the seconds before her death), and a condition that forces her to speak in an English accent when she’s had anesthesia, to name just a few. Shepherd turns her every condition into something fresh and funny, then builds on them.

Rather than playing as repetitive jokes, these conditions are part of a larger sense of Anne as a consistently free and surprising character, with thoughts that never connect from one to the next, who can and will take any bit down an unpredictable path. When, in one episode, she and Josh go to the bank to inquire about a suspect’s finances, the bank manager gives them the run of the place, asking them to lock up. Next thing we know, Anne has settled in, talking about interest rates and giving a mortgage for a yogurt store to a 14-year-old.

In addition to those two and Lithgow, the other big comic delight is Mays, as prosecutor Keane. Dead set on becoming the town’s district attorney, she sees prosecuting Larry and sending him to the electric chair as her ticket to the top. But she’s also a single woman in a small town with a shallow dating pool, which has led to some desperate choices, and her smoldering chemistry with Josh, who she can flirt with and threaten in the same breath, bursts off the screen. Shortly into the season, they become adversaries with a dash of sex on the side, and Mays devastates in how she plays them simultaneously, growling in anger while grabbing Josh’s hand as Larry takes a lie detector test, or explaining her latest move against him as she eases in close enough for him to feel her breath on his neck.

While the cast is excellent and the writing tight – it’s not unusual to see three solid jokes squeezed out of a set piece other shows would abandon after one – the other secret to the show’s success is its strong sense of place. East Peck is a distinctive, slightly insane town that serves as a character all its own, as so much that happens on the show could only be believable – and, therefore, funny – if set here. It’s the kind of town where, if you find a random body part and no one claims it for two weeks, you get to keep it; where the Henderson murder trial becomes part of the landscape, even showing up in TV ads for East Peck Glass, where saying “Fry Larry” gets you a 15 percent discount.

The show has yet to be renewed, but the creators have said that if it is, it will remain in East Peck with the same characters, but focus on a different trial every season. Without giving away spoilers for those who’d like to catch up, the show set clear expectations for what the next case will be in the season’s penultimate episode; we’ll find out in the season finale tonight (Tuesday, April 18) if that was a glimpse of the path forward, or a red herring, meant to sent viewers off the trail. Either way, network television will be better served if it returns.

Trial & Error has succeeded in what most shows attempt and few pull off – it has created a wholly unique world, unlike any you’ll see on television, where outrageously funny things can and do happen simply because they’re happening there. It’s a lot to ask from a sitcom, and Trial & Error delivers.

Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. His greatest wish is to see Stefon enjoy a cheeseburger at John Belushi’s diner. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.